Lies
by OnceUponASomeday
Summary: AKA The Five Times Rayna Lied - for the Five Times/Things August challenge.
1. Chapter 1

**For the August challenge - there will be 5 chapters, some longer than others, and posted as quickly as possible given that it's only August for...another hour. Happy almost-season-2 y'all!**

Rayna Jaymes tells white lies. Everyone does - don't they? Everyone says they've done their homework so they can go to the house party, pretends their friend doesn't have atrocious taste in men even though the guy they're ogling at the bar has a septum piercing and a penchant for tie dye. White lies are part of the foundation society is built on - shampoos that will fix your split ends, powdered shakes that taste like something died in them but hey - they'll make you lose 30 pounds in a week!

Rayna tells her children they need to concentrate in Algebra class because it will come in handy when they're older, tells her manager that she definitely did _not_ ever have sex with Deacon in the bathroom of the tour bus, thank you very much, tells her sister that her hair looks great when it's poofy at the back but it's too late to do anything about it.

She is a master at telling white lies.

But Rayna Jaymes has told some Goddamn black lies in her time too.

##

Her first black lie was a second hand one.

Livy Jaymes was two hours late when she married Lamar Wyatt. He waited, and waited, in the old stone church that held three hundred people and two hundred bunches of ribbon-tied flowers, all of which co-ordinated perfectly with Livy's dress and none of which she'd chosen. She'd let Lamar's parents and her mother make the necessary arrangements, nodding her consent without ever really looking at the bridal magazines and the fabric samples and the white boxes with slivers of cake they could tier five-high, if she wanted. Lamar paced the aisle, up and down, over and over, like she might appear if he did it enough, and she did, eventually.

The only thing Livy did choose herself was her dress. She was breathtaking in it as she walked towards him and Lamar silently thanked whoever he'd sold his soul to in exchange for her. She was ivory lace and vintage pearls, silken copper curls spilling from a handmade veil that covered her face like she was in mourning. He never asked her where she'd been, not that day while she looked him in the eye and told him she'd be his forever, not that night while he kissed her and tasted champagne and promises that were already broken, not the next day when they boarded a plane and left for the honeymoon they hadn't chosen. He never asked if she'd had second thoughts, if she'd repeated the words of the priest in his neatly pressed robes with her fingers crossed behind her back.

He thought she'd change when they had children. He couldn't have her, he knew it; she was like the hidden image in one of those magic eye paintings that slips just out of sight when you look at it head on. The day she told him through a blur of tears that she was pregnant, he'd been so full of joy he'd convinced himself they were happy ones, that she would finally stop fighting whatever it was that kept him at arm's length, stop running long enough to look at him and see how desperately he loved her. That night she slipped out of their bed after she thought he was asleep, and he stood at the window and watched her get into her car, still in her nightgown, cold bare feet and no coat. It was October, and the leaves had fallen from the trees and left them exposed and shivering. He never asked where she'd gone. Lamar Wyatt listened to his wife cry herself softly to sleep every night afterwards until she gave birth to their first daughter, and then he listened to the baby cry in a cruel echo that would never let him forget.

Livy's second pregnancy was different. He knew before she told him - he'd heard her throwing up early in the morning, had seen something in her face that gave her away. He watched her pass a gentle hand over her still-flat stomach when she didn't think he was looking, saw her gaze out of the window miles and miles away from him. He knew it was coming, and when she sat him down and told him Tandy was to have a brother or sister, the only tears were his. For nine months she was still, content, a peace he'd always hoped he could instil in her but had always known he never could. It fascinated him as much as it repulsed him, made him burn with the envy he would never let himself succumb to. It was his ring she wore, it was his name that formed half of hers, just as it was supposed to be, two halves of a whole. But it wasn't his child that grew inside her, that swelled her belly and made her smile like she was in love. She was. Just not with him. He never asked her to speak the truth they both already knew, to say the words aloud that would shatter his heart into pieces he would never be able to scrape up from the floor. He never asked if the baby's father knew. They didn't talk about Watty.

The day Rayna was born it was cold outside. Cold and drenched with clean, fresh sunlight, one of those crisp days where you feel like you can _breathe_, where the sky is so blue it looks like an oil painting parody of itself. Lamar stood outside the hospital letting the air cool his lungs and watching it fog around him. She had the same eyes as Livy, the same heart shaped mouth, the same brilliant hair, little tufts of it framing the face that looked just like her and nothing like him. He didn't understand how he could feel such a tug on his heart when he looked at her, and in the same moment feel so very inadequate, so knowingly and willingly deceived.

She was perfect. A perfect, tiny lie, with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes.

The years passed and Rayna grew, more like her mother and less like him every day. Every time she called him daddy she was an unwitting accomplice. Every time he picked her up from school and she ran to him when a teacher pointed and told her 'Your father's here,', every cake she baked him for his birthday with his name in piped icing letters. There was a picture on the refrigerator she'd drawn in crayon, held up with magnets they'd bought in a museum gift shop on vacation. It showed four people holding hands like paper dolls. She'd drawn her mother with long hair and a guitar, wings where her arms should be, her older sister in a prim dress with pigtails, and him, her father, with a briefcase and a silly hat on his head. When he'd asked why Livy had wings she'd told him it was because her mother flew away lots and no one knew where she was, like a bird. The four of them, in wobbly primary-coloured lines - a family. If Lamar looked at it hard enough he was sure he'd see a fifth person, right there in the back.

And then Livy was gone, and there was no more time, no chances to ask all the things he never had.

He'd loved Rayna as much as he'd resented her, but he couldn't stand to look at her, afterwards. She was a constant reminder of all that was over, of all that he'd never truly had. And then she started playing music, and the frayed rope he'd held onto all her life started to unravel, him at one end and her at the other, both of them lost. Lamar didn't think there could have been a bigger slap in the face than when Watty stepped in to help her, had her playing some show in a bar she wasn't old enough to get in to, but he was wrong. It figured, really, that Watty would be the person to introduce her to Deacon Claybourne. If he'd seen in them a chance to fulfil the happy ending he never had, he'd been wrong. Lamar would never let it be so.

The worst day of Lamar's life was the day Tandy closed his office door and told him Rayna was pregnant with Deacon Claybourne's child. He saw Livy in her so vividly every time he looked at her during those months, so much so that he couldn't meet her eye, and he knew she thought it was because she'd disgraced him - not that she cared. She was vulnerable, her turmoil clouding the vibrancy that usually poured from her, her determination never to listen to him faltering, and he'd acted in her best interests and his when he'd said that accepting Teddy's proposal was the best thing for the baby, that she should put the child first, like her mother never had.

But Rayna wasn't Livy. Rayna never looked at her daughters like they were any different, never favoured Deacon's child any more, never punished her for reminding her every day of the love she'd lost. She was there in the middle of the night when they woke from a bad dream, to stroke their hair back from their foreheads and tell them it was okay, to check under their beds for ghoulies and chase away evil demons and spiders with wriggly legs. She was there for their school plays, to make them popcorn and snuggle through saccharin movies, to soothe their scraped knees when they fell off their bikes. They never woke to the creak of the third step, never crept downstairs to see the door closing behind her quietly and wonder where it was that she disappeared to, how many days it would be before she came home.

And yet.

The bitter taste of the love and the lie that died with Livy Jaymes was a taste her daughter's tongue would know too well.

'Well thank you,' Rayna said to the woman with the poodle perm at the Country Club, the one with the ass her husband told her didn't look big in the dress she'd poured herself into. 'She sure does have Teddy's eyes.'


	2. Chapter 2

**This bugger has been sitting around half written for far too long, I apologise! **

There was a time when Rayna couldn't stand Deacon Claybourne.

To say they argued wouldn't have come close to covering it - they could barely get through a rehearsal without one yelling and the other slamming a door. She was tempestuous and he was proud and they were both stubborn as all hell. She told him he was an asshole and he told her she was a princess, and that made her spit fire and aim right for him.

And then they shut their mouths and opened them to sing together, and all of their volatility morphed into something beautiful, something that just worked, even if they didn't know why. It was as natural as breathing, the blend of their voices, the feeling that poured from each of them and mingled into something raw and honest. She wrote love songs, broken, guttural ones that she felt in her bones but had never lived, and when Deacon played them with her they took on life, became more than words on paper.

They spent months playing tiny gigs in tiny bars, earning nothing more than an enthusiastic smattering of applause from the twenty-strong crowds, but the reputation they were building for themselves picked up steam in all the right directions. The day Watty White called Rayna to tell her that he'd managed to secure them a paid gig at Tootsies, that someone had actually booked them, she completely forgot how much Deacon infuriated her and was rambling breathlessly down the phone to him before she could even berate herself for knowing his number off by heart.

They rehearsed every day, perfecting their set list, adding in the couple of new songs Rayna had been working on. She reluctantly let him play about with the melodies, cautious to see what he'd come up with, but like everything they did together musically, it slotted right into place, better for the collaboration than it ever would have been on its own.

Rayna was sitting down to dinner with three days to go when Lamar almost ruined everything.

'The Baxters are putting on a dinner at the Country Club in honour of their son passing the bar,' he said, clearing his throat and fixing his two daughters with a grimace. It was rare that he was home for dinner, and Rayna had known there must be a reason. She pushed the food on her plate around as he talked, her mind miles from the overdressed table. 'Ron Baxter's firm are about to close a deal on the arcade downtown, so naturally we will be attending to help them celebrate. I expect you both to be there.'

Tandy sipped her water and picked up a perfectly polished fork with her perfectly polished fingers. 'Sure Daddy. When is it?'

'It's on Saturday.'

'This Saturday?' Rayna asked, her stomach dropping.

'Yes,' Lamar replied in a tone that dared her to challenge him. 'Do you have a problem with that?'

She did have a problem with that. She could tell him the truth. And he could lock her in her room and make sure she went nowhere near Tootsies that Saturday or any other Saturday. Or she could lie.

'It's Lucie Nailor's sweet sixteenth,' she said, looking him steadily in the eyes. 'she's having a party at her house. I don't know what time I'll be back.'

'I don't recall you having mentioned Lucie Nailor since sixth grade.'

'Maybe you just haven't been listening Daddy. I went to the movies with her just a few weeks ago.' Rayna could feel Tandy studiously looking at her plate next to her, opting to keep quiet.

'Regardless,' Lamar said, tucking a napkin into his collar and waving his hand dismissively, 'the Baxters' dinner is more important.'

'Daddy,' Rayna said, careful to keep her voice level though her heart was hammering. The gig was everything to her, the start of all that she knew was to come in her life if she could just make it happen. 'Lucie was really good to me when Momma died, I can't very well miss such an important birthday.' She set down her fork, lifting her chin. 'And her father is on the board at the Credit Union, I don't think it would look so good if I upset his daughter.'

Lamar didn't mention it again, frosty towards her for the rest of their meal, and Tandy's questioning later that night was met with the same story. Rayna knew she couldn't slip up - Lamar had a keener nose for blood than a shark, and their relationship had been more strained than ever since she'd started playing shows, even the ones in the middle of the day to ten people. He made no secret that he disapproved highly of her desire to be a musician, something he seemed to take pleasure in informing her she would fail at.

Saturday came, complete with rain, and Rayna woke up after two restless hours of sleep with lead butterflies in her stomach. She squashed the urge to call Deacon and poured herself a stiff coffee, downed it and poured another two. They were meeting at lunchtime to go through their set one last time, spend the afternoon warming up, and she'd played it out in her mind so many times she felt like they'd already done the gig six times.

She was perched restlessly on a stool in the kitchen trying to swallow some dry cereal when Lamar appeared. He stopped a few steps away from her, the look on his face the one he reserved for her and kitchen staff, something between a sneer and downright disdain.

'Lucie Nailor's birthday is in December,' he said simply. 'You are not old enough to be going into a bar and playing _music_.' He said it like it was a dirty word, and Rayna bristled. She knew she was in for it when his face turned pink. 'Watty White is not to be helping you,' he spat, so livid she almost expected fire to puff out of his nostrils. 'I don't know who that man thinks he damn well is, encouraging you to piss your life away on some stupid dream.'

'It isn't stupid Daddy,' she said, trying to keep her voice level, 'and it isn't just some dream. Watty got me a gig, a real gig. They're gonna pay us and everythin'.' She hated that even in the depth of her resentment towards him, she wanted his approval, still longed to hear him say he was proud of her for trying so hard to make something of herself. He didn't.

'You do not need paying for anything! You are a Wyatt, you want for nothing, and you do not need to be selling yourself at some filthy two bit bar.'

'Selling myself? You make it sound like I'm workin' a street corner!'

'I'd rather you were - at least you would have no delusions of grandeur turning your head.'

Rayna scoffed and jumped off the stool, her spoon clattering loudly into the bowl of cereal.

'If you really believed you weren't doing something wrong you wouldn't have felt the need to lie about it, would you?' he said scornfully, and pounded his fist on the counter. 'You will not go.'

'You think I'm gonna sit and play nicely at your Country Club games Daddy, just like you?' She shook her head. 'I'm not like you. I never will be - it doesn't matter what you do.'

'You are my daughter Rayna and you will behave the way I tell you to! You will give up this music rubbish - I will not allow you to shame this family.'

'Shame the family, really?' She felt her lungs burn. 'Is that what Momma did so wrong?'

She thought for a second that he was going to slap her across the face, and she braced herself, staring him down. When he spoke his voice was ice cold and too quiet.

'Your mother disgraced this family chasing after things that were nothing but poison. You will not make those mistakes.'

'Watch me,' Rayna hissed, stalking past him.

'If you go near that place don't you think you're coming back to this house,' he called after her, and she would have felt the sting if she hadn't been so furious.

'Fine!'

'I mean it. You are making a choice here - and if you make the wrong one, you are no daughter of mine.'

As she slammed the door behind her she felt like he'd slapped her in the face anyway.

#

'I think we should swap these two around, do the two slower numbers first, build up to this one.'

'Sure,' Rayna said, and Deacon lifted an eyebrow.

'You okay?'

'I'm fine. I think you're right - they sit better that way.'

'You think I'm right? Are you _sure_ you're okay?' Deacon laughed, and she felt the tangle in her stomach loosen a little.

'Make the most of it Deacon, I'm not gonna say that again.' She scrubbed a pencil line through the set list. 'Not to you, anyway.'

'So what's with the bag?' he asked, motioning towards the holdall she'd stuffed under the table. 'You plannin' on pullin' an all-nighter?'

'Somethin' like that.' Rayna fiddled with the rubber on the end of the pencil, scribbled a few more pointless lines on the sheet of paper.

'Rayna?' he said, nudging her knee with his.

She looked up at him and took in a deep breath. 'My father kicked me out.'

'What?'

'He said if I came here tonight that I shouldn't bother going home.'

He stared at her for a moment. 'He kicked you out for playing a gig?'

'Yep.'

Deacon let out a breath. 'Guess your daddy's not your biggest fan, huh?'

She wanted to say something but she thought she might cry if she opened her mouth, the anger and the fear she wished she could push away that made her remember she was barely more than a kid rising to the surface. But Rayna and fear had been due a rematch since the day her mother had died and she'd wondered if she'd ever be able to sleep a full night again without seeing images of her bloody and broken in a hospital bed.

'What are you gonna do?'

'I haven't got that far yet.' She shrugged and gave him a tremulous smile, mentally pulling herself together. She wasn't about to let herself fall apart in front of anyone, least of all Deacon Claybourne. 'We've got a gig to focus on, I'll figure out the rest later.'

He didn't point out that 'later' would be almost midnight, or that she'd pressed so hard on the paper that she'd drawn a pencil whirlwind right through onto the Formica table underneath.

'You can stay with me.'

She couldn't help the shock on her face as she looked up at him, and he wondered if he'd said the wrong thing, but she needed somewhere to stay, and there was no way he'd see her out on the streets. He'd heard stories about Lamar Wyatt, about his money, about his stranglehold on half the town. It seemed that stranglehold extended to his daughter too. That was some integrity she had there, to turn away from him. Deacon knew what it was to have to fight for what ran through your veins.

'I rent an apartment over the other side of town with a friend of mine, it's not the Ritz, but it's something,' he said, feeling shy all of a sudden. 'You can have my room, I'll take the couch.'

Ordinarily she would have turned him down, either out of politeness at not wanting to put him out, or because she'd half-on-purpose dropped a mic stand on his foot last week when he'd pissed her off. But this wasn't ordinarily, and she wasn't in a position to refuse such a gesture. She looked out at the rain coming down against the window.

'Wouldn't your friend mind?'

Deacon laughed. 'Vince is in a different girl's bed every night, he's hardly ever there.' He saw the look that crossed her face and hurried to correct himself. 'He wouldn't maul you or anything, Vince is a gentlemen. He's just got a bit of a thing for women.'

'And you don't?'

He fiddled with the napkin holder in the middle of the table, not sure why he couldn't meet her eye. 'I'm not so bad Rayna. And I make a mean poached egg.' The second it was out of his mouth - _How do you like your eggs in the morning?_ he thought, feeling like an idiot - he waited for her to roll her eyes, but she didn't. She smiled at him instead, and he really wished she'd aim more of those his way.

'Why would you do that for me Deacon?'

'Because you're putting yourself on the line for your music,' he said honestly, 'and you could use a friend.'

'So we're friends now?'

He shrugged. 'We are if you have any girl stuff in that bag that'll make my bathroom smell better than it does right now.'

#

Rayna could pinpoint the best forty minutes of her life to those she spent on the rickety stage trying at first not to catch the eyes of the audience scattered before her, and then trying to look away once she realised she had them in the palm of her hand. She did look away, only to lock eyes with Deacon and forget they were in front of anyone else at all. She felt the applause that greeted the end of their set vibrate through every bone in her body, making her feel like nothing ever had, like something had fallen into place that she would never be able to deny herself again. It was where she belonged, up there, there was no doubt in her mind, however much she had to fight for it.

She sat with Deacon and the rest of their band at one of the tables afterwards to watch the couple of acts that came after them, the elation she felt clearly shared by all of their little group, staying until the harassed-looking barman kicked them out at closing time. Deacon picked up her bag before she could reach for it, ushering her out of the door and into a cab he flagged down.

They didn't speak until he opened the creaky front door of the small ground floor apartment, motioning for her to go first.

'Like I said, it's not much,' he said, hovering by the door and watching her take it in.

She turned to him. 'It's great Deacon, really.'

He smiled, feeling an odd little flicker of relief, and led her to a door down the narrow hallway.

'This is my room,' he said, putting her bag down next to the bed. She noted with surprise that he'd made it that morning, and just as quickly the thought that maybe he hadn't slept in it at all popped into her head, followed by an unwelcome little twist in her stomach. 'I'll put some clean sheets on for you, and there are towels in the closet.'

'You don't need to do that, I'm sure your sheets are just fine,' she said awkwardly.

He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. 'Do you need anything? A drink, something to eat? Or I can just leave you to sleep?'

'Actually,' she replied, 'I don't much feel like sleeping. I could use some air though.'

They sat in the little space outside the living room doors, heads resting against the wall of the building. To call it a garden would be generous; it was more a yard, empty flower pots that Rayna imagined had been left behind by the previous tenant dotting the edges, a rusty patio table that was once white set in the middle. Deacon had hastily moved the empty beer bottles that had been piled up on it when he'd opened the doors, throwing them in a garbage bag in the kitchen.

'This has been quite a night, huh?' he said, settling beside Rayna and looking up at the city-glow sky, rain pattering on the tiled roof. They were close enough to the wall to avoid being soaked, cocooned on a picnic blanket he'd laid out for them to sit on.

'Yeah,' she agreed, still dizzy with the feeling. 'I've never felt anything so good in my whole life.'

He lit a cigarette and lifted it to his lips. 'You smoke?'

'No. Not as far as my father thinks anyway.'

He grinned and handed it to her, and she closed her eyes as she exhaled slowly, feeling him watching her.

'There's nothing like it,' he said, taking it from her when she passed it back. 'That feeling - performing, letting people hear your music. It's the only thing I've ever known that gets better and better instead of more and more fucked up.'

'Yeah,' she breathed, hugging her knees to her chest.

'Why's your daddy so against you making music?'

'Because he doesn't want me to be my momma, I guess.'

'Is your momma a singer too?'

_Too_. She liked the way that sounded, like it was validation of the path she'd chosen, that she was good enough to be on it. 'She was,' she said, and Deacon waited for her to go on. 'She died a few years ago.'

'Ray,' he said quietly, 'I'm sorry.' She looked at him and plucked the cigarette from his fingers, keeping her eyes on him while she took a drag.

'Me too. So, Deacon Claybourne, where is it you're from?'

'Not too far from Shelbyville ma'am, horse country. My momma and pops have got a farm out there.'

'You're a farm boy?' she asked, surprised.

'Sure am,' he told her with a wink. 'You ever need any horses shoeing, I'm your guy.'

She laughed. 'I'll remember that.'

'So...what now?'

'I find a job, I guess. The gig tonight helped, it's hardly a rent cheque but it's a start. I need to look for someplace to live.'

'You can stay here as long as you want. I mean it.'

She thanked him, gratitude washing over her, and got up to head to bed, the events of the day and their long night rendering her suddenly exhausted. Deacon stayed where he was, looking at her lipstick marks on the butt of the cigarette that had burnt down between his fingers and wondering what they were letting themselves in for.

#

She stayed for two months. On numerous occasions she tried to swap the couch for the bed so that Deacon could get a good night's sleep, but he refused every time.

'And girls complain that chivalry's dead,' he'd tell her, stealing one of her pillows all the same.

'You could always sleep in it with me,' she'd said one night, blushing furiously when she'd realised how it sounded.

'Even if I managed to keep my hands to myself, Ray, your father ever caught wind of that and he'd have a shotgun up my ass.'

Neither of them mentioned his hands or what it was they might want to do again, and she repaid his generosity with bacon and maple pancake breakfasts just like her mother used to make for her, the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of her soft singing waking Deacon up in a morning. Vince wolfed down his pancakes and battled Deacon to the half-eaten one she always left on her plate, and she laughed when they sung her the song they'd written about her playing Wendy to their Lost Boys. She planted sunflowers in the pots in the yard, wiped the toothpaste smears off the bathroom mirror and stocked their fridge with fresh pints of milk, and Deacon wasn't sure if it was him or Vince who asked her first if she'd stay forever.

'What in the hell are these?' Vince said one morning, emerging from the bathroom holding up a set of steam rollers. 'I will never understand why girls need so much crap. My face smells good though - sniff me.'

He hovered over Rayna who snorted. 'Vince…that's tinted moisturiser.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means in five to six hours you're going to look like you've gone three rounds with a sunbed,' Deacon said, laughing loudly.

There were nights they sat on his couch, cross-legged and surrounded by pizza boxes and sheets of half-written lyrics, nights when the power went out - which it did frequently, Vince and Deacon were never great at paying their bills - and they lay on the floor in candlelight, the three of them, talking about anything, everything until the sun came up - their favourite songs, the recurring nightmare about tractors Deacon had, the boyfriend Rayna had dumped when he'd tried to take her to a restaurant wearing pinstripe. There were afternoons Rayna sat on the kitchen counter swinging her legs and eating ice cream while Deacon marvelled at how much mint chocolate chip she could put away, mornings when he tried to teach her how to better her guitar skills, always with little success and much laughter. There were no nights, despite the times Deacon took the washing off the line to be confronted by her flimsy pyjama shorts and silk underwear, that they crossed the lines they'd silently drawn, no nights he gave in to his desire to crack open his bedroom door and sit on the end of the bed to watch her sleep.

She landed a job waiting tables in a café downtown, and saved up enough to room with a couple of girls who were trying to make it on the circuit too. After she was gone, Deacon left it as long as he could before he washed his sheets - which was a while, given that a. he was a guy and b. she'd made his pillows smell like her hair and his covers smell like her skin. In those few weeks with her scent still lingering around him, he slept more peacefully than he had in years. Rayna, on the other hand, tossed and turned every night in her new bed, missing his terrible coffee and the way he sang Dolly Parton in the shower.

If it was a lie she had to thank for changing irrevocably the way Deacon looked at her, for kick-starting a string of gigs that landed them a deal a few months later and a number one record a few months after that, it was one she would never regret.


	3. Chapter 3

**You might need a valium for this one folks. After that last fluffier chapter, this one broke me.**

There wasn't a soul about when Rayna stood at the edge of the cliff-top, looking out across the choppy water. She filled her lungs with the salty air; it was like swallowing tears.

She hadn't been right for weeks, shaky, exhausted. And sick - really sick. Not surprising, really, she'd told herself - Deacon's health was worse than ever, and it was all she could think about. It consumed her, much to Bucky's concern, much to Teddy's annoyance, much to Tandy's sorrow.

The last time she'd seen him she'd been in the dress she'd had on the night before, her underwear nowhere to be seen, no doubt flung halfway across the house; Deacon could really go long with her underwear when he was drunk and horny and missing her so much it made him ill. Or more ill - she wasn't sure whether it was her or the booze that was worse for him, it had all gotten so hazy, so screwed up.

She'd hurried to pull the tiny sequinned thing back on in the grey light of the almost-morning, trying not to feel the judgement in Coleman's stare when he'd arrived at the door in answer to her hysterical phonecall.

'Have you called an ambulance?' he'd asked, slapping Deacon about the face where he lay on the bed. He hadn't moved.

'Yes,' she'd answered shakily, 'you got here first. He won't wake up Cole, I don't know what to do.' She'd paced, up and down and around and around, and Coleman had shaken her roughly by the shoulders to get her to calm down. 'I thought he was dead, Cole,' she'd croaked. 'I thought he was dead.'

'He isn't - he's just passed out Rayna, he'll be okay,' he'd said, so close to her face she could smell his toothpaste. 'How long has he been unconscious?'

'I don't know,' she'd admitted, breaking down into a sob that had made her feel like she was going to choke. 'I was asleep, I don't - I don't know.'

She'd known the look he'd given her, it was the one that said _what the hell were you thinking?_, and she hadn't known what the hell she had been thinking, she'd just known that she could never say no to him - she'd tried, so many times, but the willpower she possessed in every other part of her life withered and vanished when it came to Deacon, especially a broken, lonely Deacon who told her desperately through his tears that only she could make him better, and he just wanted to be _better_.

The sirens hadn't been far behind Coleman and they'd filled Rayna with that all too familiar paradox - hope and dread, wrapped up in a bow. It had been a blur, everything that came next; an ambulance she'd sat in and a hospital she knew and a limp hand she'd held and a doctor who'd asked questions she'd answered before, and she'd wished she didn't feel like her life was stuck on a loop but she knew it was better than the horrid feeling in her stomach that told her it wouldn't always be that way. One day the doctor would come out of the room and take off his hat and tell her he was dead, and that would be new.

She hadn't gone with him when Coleman had driven him three hundred miles across the country a few days later. Partly because Coleman had told her not to, partly because she'd told herself not to, and partly because when Deacon had woken up in his hospital bed he hadn't known what her name was for a full three minutes, and he'd still looked at her like he loved every last scrap of skin on her body. She felt like she was nothing more than that - scraps of skin and splinters of bone that made up a person that she knew she used to be but she couldn't find in there anymore, couldn't see when she looked in the mirror. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes hollow, her lips dry and cracked. There was no joy anymore in waking up and seeing what the day would bring - it brought only fear, and awful, overpowering bouts of horror that gripped her in iron clutches and stole her breath.

The last kiss he'd given her had tasted of whiskey and salty tears.

Rayna licked the sea air from her lips, tasting it all over again.

That had been almost six weeks ago. A lot had happened in six weeks.

The sickness had become unbearable, starting when she woke up and sneaking up on her through the day, interrupting rehearsals, cutting short radio interviews. Her band and Bucky - and her - assumed at first that she had a nasty bug, told her to go home and rest it out. She refused, of course - there was no rest to be had, wherever she was. Going home would only result in too much time and too much silence and too much thinking, and thinking was not Rayna's friend. A week had passed, and 'go home and rest' turned into 'we need to get you to a doctor', and she scoffed at the idea and snapped a little too much.

'They'll tell me to eat more and sleep more and worry less,' she said. She'd been obsessing over whether this one would stick, fifth time lucky, but she jumped every time her phone rang. Her nerves were tattered and torn and they whispered to her that this would be it, this would be the call to tell her that the fifth time was not lucky, that the fifth time was the last time.

But the phonecall didn't come, and neither did her period. When the dizziness started she knew something was wrong, and then came the day she collapsed in rehearsal and Bucky didn't wait for her to refuse help again. She came around on the way to the hospital, the smell of Bucky's car air freshener making her throat burn. Three hours later she was staring at it numbly as it swung back and forth, a cup of sweet coffee they'd made her drink in one hand and a pregnancy pamphlet in the other. A pamphlet - like it was the most normal thing in the world, like she should be concerning herself with choosing an OB-GYN and a birthing plan and a Lamaze class that would fit around her schedule. All she could think about was the way Deacon had looked at her with completely clear eyes while he'd peeled the zipper of her dress down and held her hand to help her step out of it.

'Is there a chance you could be pregnant, Miss Jaymes?' the softly-spoken doctor had asked, pulling the blood-pressure cuff off Rayna's arm.

'No,' she'd said automatically, and the doctor had seen the look that crossed her face and had told her gently she would order the tests just to be sure.

Bucky had come in to sit with her afterwards, while she waited for the results, awkwardly patting her arm and giving her a reassuring half-smile. They'd made her stay in one of the beds while she got her strength back, and she'd tried to get out of it, telling Bucky it was ridiculous, but he'd insisted she stay put, and she'd never seen him quite so firm so she'd relented.

'I'm fine Buck,' she'd said, the colour coming back to her cheeks. 'They're just gonna tell me I need to stop workin' myself so hard, that's all.'

When the doctor had returned she'd asked if Rayna had wanted him to stay, and she'd nodded, grateful for his familiar presence. She hated hospitals.

'Okay then,' the woman had chirped, giving Rayna one of those careful doctor smiles that gave nothing away. 'Well, you're a little underweight, and suffering from a fair amount of exhaustion.'

Rayna had glanced at Bucky, both of them relieved at the diagnosis.

'And you're going to need to be looking after yourself a little better,' she'd continued. 'Miss Jaymes, you're about four weeks pregnant.'

The room had spun horribly, the doctor's face melting away from her as she'd stared at it, and she'd vaguely heard Bucky's voice from a long way off. The doctor had said something about giving her a moment, coming back to talk to her about what came next, and had left her propped up against the hard pillows feeling like someone had punched her in the gut.

'Ray,' Bucky had said, 'are you okay?' He didn't sound okay himself, and she didn't know how to answer him, or how to get any words out at all.

'I need to get out of this bed,' she'd said, suddenly hot with panic, the walls closing in on her. She'd thrown the covers back frantically and slid to the edge, trying to steady her shaking hands, and Bucky had knelt on the floor in front of her.

'I think I'm gonna throw up,' she'd told him, and he must have shoved a paper bucket into her hands because she was retching into it a second later. 'God, I'm sorry,' she'd said weakly, setting it aside, 'that's really horrible.'

'Are you okay?' he'd asked again, handing her a plastic cup of water.

She wasn't.

'Shall I get someone? Your sister?'

'No, no.'

Bucky had hesitated. 'Do you want me to call Teddy?'

'No,' she'd shot, looking at him in alarm, and she'd sucked in a shaky breath, her lip trembling. 'I want you to call Deacon.'

He'd understood at once, closed his eyes for a moment and squeezed her knee, and Rayna had crumpled, her head dropping into her hands. He'd let her cry, knowing she didn't want him to call Deacon, as much as him being there with her was everything she did want.

He'd driven her home, glancing nervously at her while she'd looked blankly out of the window with a white face, and had put her to bed, giving her no choice but to rest.

#

Every day of the two weeks that had passed since Rayna had had to stop herself calling Deacon. If she'd thought she needed him before, it was nothing to what she felt now. She didn't know whether it was the longing for something she knew she couldn't have with him, or the excess hormones that felt like they had taken over her body, or maybe some primeval urge to cling to the man whose flesh and blood was growing inside her, but she craved him so badly it was physically painful.

She knew what she had to do, but it was ruining what little was left of her. And still, that was better than ruining what was left of him. The only thing she could see clearly was the love she had for him, and that meant there was really only one choice. It was always love that fought its way over everything else to make it to the top of the pile with them, and she'd always let it be so, until the doctors had told her that last time that he would very likely not survive another overdose, that his body was shutting down.

'You need to let him go,' Coleman had told her when he'd got back from the facility with the black eye Deacon had given him as a checking-in present. 'You and the drink Rayna, you're one and the same thing to him. He cannot get better while you're in his life. You're going to kill him if you keep loving him.'

That was the day she'd started to try and put love further down the pile, under 'he's addicted to you', and 'do the right thing', all of it buried beneath the image of him lying on a slab.

She hadn't, on that day, had any idea that she was already carrying his baby, hadn't bargained for what would come next. But not telling him it was his - it was the only way to save him from himself, from her, from whatever they were and whatever they could never be.

She didn't know if the baby was her penance for loving him still or her final gift from him, the very last part of himself he had left to give to her.

As she sat with her eyes closed listening to the waves she wondered, if only things could be different, what Deacon would think of her pregnant - if he'd find it strange to see her stomach grow, if he'd think it was beautiful, whether he'd be proud that he'd made her that way. If it would make him more protective than he already was. She wondered what his hand would feel like on her bare stomach, if they would laugh or be horrified when the baby kicked her for the first time. She let herself indulge, telling herself it was the last time, that once she left the cliff-top she had to stop, in thoughts of him choosing tiny socks, singing made up words to nursery rhymes he didn't quite know, holding the two of them in the secret hours in the middle of the night when neither could sleep. She let herself cry, let the clean air wash it all away, everything she felt that she tried not to. In that place where there was no one to tell her what was right, what wasn't to be, she could be honest with herself about how much it hurt, how fucking _much_ it hurt.

She had no idea how long she stayed there, cross-legged on the ground, but her thighs ached when she stood up, a wave of nausea stilling her for a moment. She took steadying breaths and looked up at the sky, moody with thunder clouds. There was something pure about the point where the earth gave way to the water, and it made her feel small, insignificant. The clouds were getting closer; a storm was on its way.

She pulled her sweater around herself and turned to leave, feeling lighter somehow, if only a little and if only for a moment. The track back down to the place she'd left her car wound through long grass, and she took it slowly, a hand absently rubbing her stomach, wondering how long it would be before it started to change, before people would be able to tell. Would Deacon know the instant he looked at her what it was that she couldn't tell him? Fondness already gripped her overwhelmingly when her hand settled over the place she knew the baby lay. How it was possible to love someone she'd never met, so very much and so very immediately, she didn't know. Maybe she was giving up one kind of love for another to grow - maybe Deacon's love was in her very blood now, still close to her after all.

'Morning miss,' a balding man in a raincoat called, the dog he was walking yapping and plucking her from her thoughts. It took her too long to answer, and all she could offer him was a weak smile and a tip of her head, but he waved back like she was his great Aunt Mary come to bring him pie.

'You take care out here,' he said, motioning towards her hand, and she pulled it quickly away from her stomach, shoving it in her pocket. 'These paths are fair rocky - you don't want to be takin' a tumble in your condition.' He smiled at her, the jolly, carefree smile of someone who had no place he needed to be and no time he needed to be there.

She didn't respond and he peered at her more closely, seeing the tear tracks on her face. And then his expression changed, flickering with recognition. He slapped a hand on his thigh, the dog tugging on its leash. 'Well I'll be…aren't you…'

'No,' she replied, cutting him off, 'no, I'm not.'

And she walked away.

#

_Madeleine Alice Conrad_, they wrote on her birth certificate a little less than eight months later.

'It was my mother's middle name,' Rayna told Teddy when he asked, but it wasn't true.

There was guilt in every stroke of her pen, but she pushed it away, locked it in the place where she kept a graveyard of skeletons. Her lie was a gift, to both of them. _Alice_. Deacon's mother's name was a small offering to Maddie, but it was a part of him, her father, the man Rayna had always loved but couldn't have. It was an even smaller offering to Deacon, no replacement for the child he didn't know he was losing, but it was her promise, that if ever the day came when he would know he had a daughter, that he would know too that she'd loved him, that after everything, he'd been there with her all along.


	4. Chapter 4

It rained the entire drive to the cabin. One of Rayna's windscreen wipers started squeaking halfway there and the sound needled her so much she steered into a lay-by and pulled the damn thing off. She stood looking at it in her hands while the rain plastered her hair to her back, no idea how to fix it and a sob of frustration rising in her throat. The rest of the drive was made with the volume cranked up on a radio station she didn't know, the only one she could get. The dull crackling only served to add to the noise in her head.

Deacon's first reaction to her unexpected arrival was shock.

'Car trouble,' she said, in response to the question he couldn't quite work out how to ask as he looked her over on the doorstep. 'Mind if I come in Deacon? It's pretty wet out here.'

He snapped out of his astonishment and pulled the door open wider, ushering her inside without touching her, and she dripped water onto the doormat as she stood there shivering.

'Clothes,' he said dumbly, staring at her and flushing a little. 'You're soaked Ray, you need to put something dry on.'

'I didn't bring any clothes,' she replied, grimacing at the feel of her sodden sweater.

If he was surprised that she was there in the first place, he was more surprised that she had come armed with only what she had on, but the fraught look on her face stopped him asking what had made her take sudden flight. She let him lead her into the bedroom they had shared, the room where she'd woken up with his arms around her, feeling like the whole world was a memory, that she was safe, would always be.

She stood awkwardly at the side of the bed while he pulled open drawers.

'Put these on,' he said, handing her a pile of warm dry clothes that smelled like him and the washing powder that had been her favourite when they'd lived together. 'I'll let you change.'

He shuffled out of the room and pulled the door closed, and she knew he was standing on the other side of it, trying to work out why she was there. She was trying to work out the same thing.

She hadn't meant to go to the cabin. She'd needed to drive, to get away from town, but an hour along black roads and she'd realised the direction she'd gravitated in would lead her to Deacon. It always did, somehow. He'd been up at the cabin for a couple of weeks, needing his own breather from the chaos, the stream of gigs, the pressure of life in Nashville where his foot was as good as super-glued to the pedal.

'Well those sweatpants look a whole lot better on you than they do on me,' he said when she emerged, holding out a mug of steaming tea. She took it gratefully, warming her hands and curling herself into a ball on the couch, trying not to think about all the times she'd ended up on top of him on it, her hands gripping the back of the cushions. There wasn't a corner of the cabin they hadn't had sex in, inside and out, and it made her feel odd now to look at him and know she couldn't pull him to her, couldn't forget about everything in the feel of his skin.

'I'm sorry to just show up here Deacon,' she said, noticing how rested he looked.

He sat in the armchair opposite and looked at her, his knees apart, elbows balanced on them. His sweater was soft and snug, the definition of his chest clear through the fine wool, and Rayna suddenly wanted nothing more than to bury her face in it and have him hold her until her mind quietened. She wondered if she'd made a mistake going there, if she'd run from one of her demons right into the arms of another.

He gave her a gentle smile. 'I'm not. You know this place will always be yours as much as it is mine.'

She returned his smile, letting her gaze wander around the room. It smelled rich and smoky, just like it always had; the familiarity of it comforted her - all that had changed, and yet if she was to walk through the door blindfolded, a hundred years later, she would know exactly where she was. It had been a long time since she'd been there, and she was surprised to see that her records were still mounted on the walls. The one her record company had given her when their first album had gone platinum hung over the fireplace, its home undisturbed despite her having married another man and moved all of the photographs of who she was then into a box.

Deacon followed her eyes and gave a bashful little shrug, as if to say, 'You never left, you know.'

She took a sip of her tea, feeling it slide down her throat and warm her whole body, and something she couldn't define slotted into place. 'I've missed this place,' she said with a little sigh.

He didn't need to tell her it had missed her too.

'Are you okay Ray?' he asked, and she didn't lie to him, even though she couldn't tell him the truth. She couldn't tell herself the truth. _I wish it could have been different_, she wanted to say._ I wish it could have been you._ 'I don't know,' she whispered instead, her lip trembling.

'Hey,' Deacon soothed. The concern etched across his face struck her in the chest. The care they had for each other had never diminished, not when they weren't speaking, too many things unsaid that they didn't dare say anything at all for fear of it all spilling out. Not when Teddy turned up unannounced to a rehearsal to dig the knife in, making no secret of the fact that he was there to remind Deacon that she was his now, that he'd lost. Not when he was knee-deep in a bottle, spitting his venom right at her. The more they put each other through the deeper their sense of protection - of each other, of what they'd had. Of what they still had.

Rayna was suddenly exhausted, her bones heavy. 'It feels like you've been gone so long,' she said, no energy left to try and keep the longing out of her voice. She'd been doing that for so many years, it should have been automatic, but it always had been stronger than she was, her need for him.

'Two weeks _is_ a long time to be away from you Ray,' he said, loaded as a pistol, apparently not trying to hide it either.

Rayna swallowed hard. It was dangerous, she knew it, being around him when her guard was nowhere to be seen. He was temptation enough in the cold light of day when she was half a country away from him and her husband's shoes were next to hers in her hotel room. But she wasn't even half a room away from him and the rain outside was wild and she was wearing his socks. _The only way to_ _get rid of temptation is to yield to it_, she heard in her head, like a sing song, a taunt. _Resist it and your soul grows sick with longing_. If only her soul wasn't already so.

'My head hurts,' she said weakly, possibly to Deacon, possibly to herself. He stood, moving towards her and prising the mug from her hands. He put it down on the coffee table and she looked up at him. 'What are you doing?'

'Sit up,' he told her, beckoning for her to scoot forwards. She did, and he inserted himself behind her on the couch, opening his legs for her to sit between and pulling her back towards him gently. She stiffened, resisting for a second, until he murmured, 'C'mere Ray,' into her ear, and she let his arms encircle her waist and bring her closer, her back flush against his chest. His hands reached up to her temples, smoothing her hair away from her face, and he began to make slow circles, his fingers pressing deliciously into her skin. It was wonderful, the relief from the pounding that had rattled her skull all the drive there almost instant, and she closed her eyes, letting out a soft hum and resting her head back against his shoulder. The fabric of his sweater was as soft against the skin of her neck as she'd imagined it to be.

'That feel good?' he breathed, and she gave him a tiny nod, feeling like she was floating. It took no time at all for her to feel herself slipping, feel her head getting heavier. His fingers could work magic, could set her on fire and turn her to ice and everything in between, and he managed somehow to replace her headache with a purring that spread from the points he touched all the way through her body.

'Hmm,' she sighed, more than an exhale, less than a word, and he knew what she meant. They had always used the cabin as their escape. Almost four years since the last time they were there together, he could still make her forget there was anything outside its door, could still envelop her in their own little cocoon.

She no longer felt the cold that had seeped in, the warmth from his body chasing it away, and she let her weight sink into him, her head rising and falling gently with his chest, like even their breathing was a single being.

'Teddy wants us to have a baby,' she said, careful with her words.

There was silence for a moment. 'Is that something you want?'

His fingers moved from her temples down to her arms while he let her try to find her answer, their small circles never ceasing, light and meant to comfort, not to ignite. Regardless of his intention, Rayna couldn't help it; she felt a stirring in the pit of her stomach that made her press her fingers into the cushions beneath them, her breathing shallow, too fast. She had to fight it, she knew that - it wasn't her reason for being there, but he felt so familiar against her, so welcome.

Another baby, Teddy had said - _a_ baby - the night before when Maddie had been asleep in the nursery and it was just the two of them, dinner cleared away, the lights turned down, a glass of wine in her hand. When he'd moved closer to her on the couch in the big house that she'd never wanted, she'd flinched, hated herself for it, and jumped to her feet.

'Teddy, we can't have a baby,' she'd said, annoyed at her inability to lower the panic in her voice.

'Why not? Maddie's three now,' he'd countered, getting up and moving towards her, reaching for her hand and holding it gently. 'She'll be starting school soon, you know how much she'd love to have a sibling.'

He was a good husband, a great one - he bought her flowers for no reason, warmed her pyjamas in front of the fire on cold nights, got up when Maddie cried so she could sleep. It was just a shame she was only his on paper, someone else's in every other way, no matter how hard she tried not to be. Her commitment to Deacon had been sealed a long time ago, never to be revoked. Their vow hadn't been spoken in front of family and friends, no priest giving his blessing. It had been etched in every lyric, every note, every look they'd given each other since the day they'd met. No piece of paper could ever compete, whatever was written on it. Her marriage to someone else, his death certificate when the drink finally claimed him.

Teddy hadn't added the rest of his argument but she'd heard it anyway - he wanted his own child, his own biological child. He wanted her to show him she was his, once and for all. She felt sick with guilt but somehow the thought of being pregnant with Teddy's child - and not Deacon's child - felt wrong, felt like she was betraying Deacon, the man who wasn't her husband but always would be. Like she was betraying herself. She'd seen the barely concealed stress on Teddy's face, the worry that she would say no. It was the dread of disappointing him and the fear of obliging him that had sent her to her car the next night with nothing more than her purse and a pair of shoes she couldn't drive in.

'I don't know what I want,' she said honestly. She did want Teddy - she loved him, she couldn't think of ever hurting him. He was good for her, far more so than Deacon was. He was also, though she would never let either of them know it, good for Deacon. She took marriage seriously, had meant it when she'd gone through with it, and the vow was both to Teddy and to herself - that she would resist Deacon, that she wouldn't let herself fall back into the clutches of the love that had destroyed both of them while it, conversely, had stayed mercilessly intact. For better or for worse, she'd said, and Teddy was better for them both. He'd given her what she'd desperately needed, a lifejacket, for her and for her baby, and she was grateful - she wanted to treat him the way he deserved to be treated. She knew he adored Maddie, but it was understandable that he would want a child of his own. He wanted Rayna too, but she wasn't hers to give.

'Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing.' She said it faintly, surprised at herself - she had spent the past four years trying to give the impression that she was keeping things together, in front of Deacon most of all. She knew why she'd come to him, her subconscious telling her that she needed the one person who anchored her to herself, to the person she really was that no one but he knew. Ten points to her subconscious, she thought, it had a better idea than she did of what she needed. Shame it had no willpower.

'You're being someone's wife, that's what you're doing.' He didn't colour his words with his own opinions on whether he thought that was wrong or right, and she looked down at her feet where they tangled with his.

'Am I?' It wasn't really a question, at least not one for him, so he didn't answer. His hands stopped their movements and made their way around her waist instead, just as they had a million times before. She was shocked at just how quickly she felt at home, like she belonged right there, in that little cabin, with him.

'Do you want to be?' He rested his chin on her shoulder, his breath hot on her neck, and something in Rayna snapped. She didn't mean to do it, but she felt her fingers lace through his, and her face turned towards him without her permission. He was millimetres from her, looking right into her eyes, unable to help his gaze from flicking down to her lips, and she knew all rational thought was locked outside in the battering rain. She let go of his hands and twisted in his arms, gripping his shoulders, their bodies too close for either of them to deny the other's intentions. How many times she'd ached for him, how much time she'd spent trying to lock it away, and there he was - hers, just like he'd always been. So much had changed, so they'd thought. Maybe not all that much had after all.

'Ray,' he said, a warning to back out now or forever hold her peace. But she couldn't find the voice in her head that recited every day all the reasons why she had to stay away, over and over, the one that would tell her to get the hell up off the couch and put some distance between her and all the promises she was about to break. Just one night, she bargained with herself, easing closer to him, his breath coming in quick bursts and spilling over her, and God, the smell of him. Her stomach thudded with lust; it was forbidden, and it made her feel as hot as it did guilty. She realised she hadn't felt anything close to it since the last night she'd been to the cabin. That had been the night they'd made a baby. He moved his hands to her hips, waiting; it was her move and they both knew it. She lowered her face, his mouth open and ready for her, and heat shot through her as her lips touched his. And then Teddy's voice screamed through her head. 'I promise to love you, to be faithful to you,' he said, the rose in his lapel scalped of its thorns, her hands safe in his. She could smell the incense in the church where she'd sworn she wouldn't do exactly what she was about to.

She jumped back, scolded. 'I'm sorry,' she said in a rush, horrified at how easy it had been to give into herself, the silver of her wedding ring catching the candlelight as her hands flew to her mouth. 'God Deacon, I'm sorry.'

'It's okay, hey, it's okay,' he said, moving to her at the other end of the couch where she sat trembling, her legs pulled up to her chest. She couldn't look at him, and he knelt next to her, his fingers tilting her chin upwards. 'It's okay,' he repeated, more firmly, and she wasn't sure what she saw when she looked in his eyes, but it wasn't anger. Disappointment maybe, loss for sure. And possibly, just possibly, relief.

#

She woke in the bed that had been theirs, alone and bleary eyed. Her head spun when she sat up and she stretched, a weak sliver of sun finding its way through the closed curtains and warming her skin. She felt like she'd slept for a year, like she'd saved up all her nights to spend them all at once and heal her tired body.

'Hey,' Deacon said when she walked out of the bedroom. She squinted at him, breathing in the smell of fresh coffee and bagels, and smiled.

'Hey.'

'How'd you sleep?'

'Better than I have in months.' Years, really, but she couldn't tell him that. He poured her some coffee and she took it with a murmur of thanks. 'How about you?'

He nodded. 'I've been up a while doin' some thinkin' Ray.' He eased the sugar pot out of her hands and held them, looking down at them. They were so small in his, so delicate. He loved her hands. He loved most of all seeing her hold Maddie's hand - the way the little girl clung to her, how she adored her momma, put all her trust in her, all there in the joining of their hands. Rayna was a wonderful mother. It knocked the wind out of him when he let himself wish it was his child who hid behind her skirt when she felt shy, his child she'd carried for nine months. He had only seen her once when she was pregnant, the whole thing too acutely painful for either of them to be around each other, both of them treading carefully when he'd gotten out of rehab, neither wanting to do anything that might send him back. He wished he'd been there for it all, the shape of her new to him every day. He wished he'd seen her rock subconsciously on her feet, shushing her unborn baby to be still, to sleep, wished he could have been protective of her, rubbed her back when it was aching, sung lullabies to her belly in the night. He wished he'd been there to hold her hand.

Their old bandmates had told him later, after Maddie was born and he could stand to hear Rayna's name again without feeling like he'd been punched, how difficult it had been for her, how troubled she'd been. They'd told him how sick she was, how she would cry whenever anyone mentioned him, how she'd withdrawn into herself and fired every guitarist Bucky had found her to replace him. And then they'd told him how beautiful she was, how much pregnancy had suited her, how she'd taken to it so naturally despite her never believing she would. He knew she was with Teddy, that if she took the step to add to her family it wouldn't include him any more than it had the first time around, but he wanted to see her that way, to make up for all he had missed. And he wanted her to be happy. He hadn't been able to make her happy when his troubles had consumed them both, he'd only made her the opposite - sad, distracted, scared. Having a family was good for her, it calmed her. If he could give her that, even if not of his own flesh and blood, he would. He owed her that much.

'I think Maddie would love a new baby,' he said softly, and her eyes filled with tears when she looked up at him. 'And I think you would too.'

#

She closed the door quietly behind her, careful not to wake Maddie, who she hoped would be fast asleep. The house was dark, still, and it was on light feet that she made her way into the kitchen, pulling a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator.

'Where have you been?'

Teddy's voice startled her, and she spun around to see him sitting in one of the armchairs in the shadows, the light from the refrigerator painting a stripe across his face. He looked tired, strained. Rayna put the carton down and walked towards him.

'I needed to think,' she said, and he was stonily silent for a moment.

'You didn't come back last night.'

'No.'

'Were you with him?'

Rayna bit her lip, looking down at her feet. 'No,' she lied, knowing it would do so much more harm than good.

'You needed to think,' he repeated, and she nodded, moving to stand in front of the chair. 'Why couldn't you think here, with me?'

'I needed to be sure of what I really wanted,' she said, holding out her hand. He took it reluctantly and toyed with it, a little flicker of hope appearing on his face. It was Teddy's vulnerability that endeared him to her most of all; for all the solidity he gave her, gave Maddie, for all the security of the life they'd built, it was when she saw how much he needed her - just as much as she needed him - that she knew she really did love him.

'And are you?' he asked quietly. 'Sure?'

Rayna nodded, and eased herself onto his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and looking him in the eye. 'I'm sure Teddy,' she whispered. 'I wanna have a baby with you.' She kissed him, Deacon's face in her mind, for once not because she couldn't help but think of him when she was with Teddy.

When she gave birth to Daphne a little over eleven months later, she thought of him as she stroked her daughter's face. It wasn't how it had been with Maddie, when she'd held her close, terrified that she would break into a million pieces with the need for him, wishing horribly that he was there with them, where he should be. The thought of him was a comfort, a love that spread through her. They'd ended up so far from where she'd thought they'd be and yet, he was there, with her, when it counted most. She sent him a silent thank you and wiped the tear from her cheek as Daphne wriggled in her arms.


End file.
